Unofficial translation by the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA). You can find the original statement in Spanish further below.

ASSOCIATION FOR JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION

AJR

STATEMENT

Victims and survivors of Pacoj, Cruz Nueva, Panatzan, Choatalun, and nearby communities lost our family members. By implementing a scorched-earth campaign, there were massacres, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings, events that occurred during the Internal Armed Conflict. In this sense we declare that the state of Guatemala was responsible for the violent acts that took place.

Timeline of events: On Feburary 12, 1982, the Guatemalan military arrived at the community of Pacoj, gathering and entrapping various families at the house of Marcial Martín. They asked the families for food, and after the soldiers had satisfied their hunger they interrogated people, sexually violated women, and brutally injured pregnant women, to the point that some people died as a result of the torture. Finally, to ensure that the children, women, and men were dead, they shot them and then burned them. On that same day, they did the same thing with the Culpatán family: trapping people, interrogating them, and shooting them to ensure that they were dead.

On March 26, the Guatemalan military, on another one of their visits, found the Atz Yucuté, Atz Tun, and Sutuj Pichiya families, as well as people they found in their houses, and brought them together, interrogated them, and later shot them.

On September 9, 1982, the Guatemalan military gathered the inhabitants of the Chijocón, Estancia de La Virgen and Choatalún villages, and, in front of everyone, executed 8 people from the village Caserío Panatzan, claiming that they were “internal enemies.”

Just as we do every year, we gather to commemorate our victims and honor them in the right way.

We urge the public prosecutor’s office to follow through on their investigations, because we are waiting for justice for the landmark events that occurred and for the serious human rights violations committed by the Guatemalan military.

We’re not making it up! Here are the 72 human remains that were recovered, and prove what we’re saying!

Memory, truth, justice, and never again!

San Martín Jilotepeque, July 15, 2026.

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